Iranian President To Visit China Next Week

He made the remarks during his speech on the 44th anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic.

His statements echo similar claims by regime officials, especially during the five months of anti-regime protests that began in September following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Women have faced many restrictions and prohibitions in the four decades since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, including the imposition of mandatory hijab, and the ban on singing and dancing.

In addition to lifestyle restrictions, women are discriminated against in obtaining high-level government posts and in receiving inheritance.

The current protests against the regime are partly driven by women and many men who resent the suppression of equal rights.

In another part of his speech, Raisi emphasized that the slogan "Neither East, nor West" is still one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic, although the regime has aligned itself with Russia and China.

For more than a decade, Iran and the governments of Russia and China, as "Eastern powers", have had close relations in various fields, including the military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow in the war on Ukraine.

In another part of his speech, Raisi said the protesters had been "deceived during the riots", alleging that they "realized the enemy is looking for sedition."

During a sermon on Friday, Mohammad Nabi Mousavifard called on the authorities to approve a law to deal with women who do not observe hijab.

“We have to pay for the preservation of religious values, even if we need to go to court several times,” he added.

Mousavifard further asked the judges to be very careful about such matters and enforce the law to deal with these “anomalies”.

“People and social service providers should stop giving services to people without hijab; People should give women with improper hijab warnings and not be indifferent, otherwise they will come to the street naked in the summer,” noted the cleric.

In January, the Supreme Leader’s representative in the city of Karaj said the reason for low precipitation and drought in the country is a lack of hijab observance, after many women took off their veils following months of protests.

Mohammad-Mehdi Hosseini Hamedani, the Friday prayer imam in Karaj, reiterated that observance of hijab should be enforced strictly in society.

"It is not possible to imagine that we are living in an Islamic country when we enter some institutions, shopping malls, pharmacies, etc.!" he said, calling on the authorities to warn shops and malls not to serve women who have removed their hijab and close them down if warnings did not suffice.

In the statement, they have repeated the previous remarks by government officials, who had said Israel's "role" in the attack has been proven so far, but due to the "ongoing investigation", additional information will be published later.

The two intelligence arms of the Islamic Republic do not mention the number of people arrested and their identities in their joint statement, which was published on the eve of the 44th anniversary of the regime establishment.

Iranian regime has repeatedly made similar claims regarding the arrest of people who played a role in attacks, but they never presented any evidence.

Elsewhere in the statement, the intelligence agencies stressed that the recent drone attack failed, and Iran will respond.

On January 28, one of the Islamic Republic of Iran's military facilities in the city of Esfahan was targeted by a drone attack, and officials claimed the attack did not cause any casualties or damage, while videos taken by citizens showed a large explosion.

The defense ministry announced that the target of the attack was an ammunition factory hit by small drones.

A day later, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had carried out the drone attack on an Iranian military center for research and development.

Reports say the disciplinary committee of Bandar Abbas University of Medical Sciences has suspended at least five students for several terms.

Two other medical students have also been exiled and forced to transfer to other universities.

In recent weeks, several reports have been published regarding the expulsion of students for their participation in nationwide protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September.

The Student Councils Union of the country announced Friday that 16 students and two professors have been suspended in the southeastern city of Zabol in connection with the recent nationwide protests.

According to the latest report by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 720 students were arrested during the protests.

In an interview with the National Public Radio in the US this week, Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claimed no students or journalists were arrested during the protests.

So far, the exact number of suspended and expelled students have not been announced, but in addition to Bandar Abbas University, there have been similar cases of punishments at other universities.

Back in December, 12 students were expelled and 80 suspended in Bahonar University of Kerman in central Iran. Similar reports have been published about the universities of medical sciences in Kerman, Shiraz in the south, and Tabriz in the northwest.

Nationwide unrest triggered by the death of a young woman detained by Iranian morality police last year has led to "increasing indications of possible spying on opposition events and individuals" in Germany, the federal government said in response to an information request from the far-left Linke Party.

"Opposition groups and individuals (...) are considered by the rulers in Iran as a threat to the continued existence of the regime," the government said in its response.

It said the country's domestic intelligence service had identified 160 individuals with links to Germany as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

The Islamic Republic has persecuted exiled dissidents for four decades, often threatening, assassinating or kidnapping activists in Europe, including a former prime minister and several journalists.

The Revolutionary Guards' "extensive spying activities" are directed in particular against pro-Israeli and pro-Jewish targets in Germany, the newspaper cited the government as saying.

Demonstrations that first erupted in September over the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who had been placed in detention by police enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict restrictions on women's dress have turned into the biggest protests in years.

Reporting by Reuters